The Phantom's Lament
by Vexie McCay
Summary: It was a happy, romantic ending. Happy and romantic for everyone but Erik. These are Eriks' thoughts on the strange affair of the Phantom of the Opera. This is Erik’s Lament.


The Phantom's Lament

AJ

Summary: It was a happy, romantic ending. Happy and romantic for everyone but Erik. These This is Erik's Lament.

Feedback: I adore feedback.

AN: I have been DYING to get this out there. I wrote this right after I saw Phantom for the first time, but I kept adding to it. Sadly, my 'net connection died on my laptop so I couldn't post it. Until now, that is. It actually works, so I'm posting as much stuff as I can before it goes out on me again. (It's inevitable)

So without further gilding the lily and no more ado, I give you this beloved fic of mine!

I have been called a mad genius. I do not deny that I am mad, for I suspected that long before anyone told me I was so. But I am afraid I am no genius. I am a fool.

I entrusted myself to her, I allowed her to touch me as no other living person had, since the day Madame Giry brought me to the opera house. I let her look upon my face, let her see my tears, let her hear my music. She gave me the courage to make myself known, yet twice, twice she betrayed me.

She tore out my heart that night on the rooftop. I followed her and her. . . _lover_ to the rooftop court, keeping to the shadows and hiding behind the figures of stone. I heard the distress in her voice as at first, she denied the comfort of that silly, stupid fop, and I caught a glimmer of hope. Maybe she loved me after all. She spoke of me, and the glimmer kindled and brightened. She spoke of what horror she saw when she dared look behind my mask, and she pitied me, something naught but one other human had ever done for me. She did not say she pitied the deformity of my cursed face, but the darkness in my eyes, in my soul. She _knew_, and yet. . .

What pretty words he wooed her with! Words of trust and hope and fairytales. He made her look into his perfectly handsome face, speaking softly and giving her light. She let him. After all, she let him. She loved him, and I could see it. She smiled at him in a way she had never smiled at me, even when I had been a nameless Angel of Music. She let him hold her with a relaxed ease she had never felt with me. And. . .she let him kiss her. A thing I had never known, not even from my own mother.

I could do nothing but stare in horror as their passion grew, their tenderness and their love practically _glowed_. They were in love, how could I have not seen it coming? But it hit me as if they had punched me. He loved her. He loved her, and she loved him in return, in a way she would never love me. I amazed her, I had her respect, but he had her love. Her heart. Her adoring, fearless glance. Her promise. Her un-hesitating touch. He had Christine as I never would.

If they would have cared to look at anything but each other, they would have surely seen me, for my carefully practiced invisibility was forgotten as I watched my beloved Christine in the arms of another. I almost wanted them to notice me. I wanted her to blush in shame, to bow her head with the knowledge that I knew her secret. I wanted him to demand the reason for my furtiveness and to watch his reaction as I told him of the wondrous relationship between his lady and myself. But they took no notice of the phantom that watched their private romance. They walked away laughing and singing, in each others' arms, paying me not even a glance, and left me alone in the falling snow, cold as my own heart was becoming.

I thought I could win her back. I thought when she stopped him from slaying me in the graveyard that I still had a chance. I thought perhaps, perhaps she somehow loved me still, somewhere she dared not show. I came to her, and she performed, for the first time, not for me, but _with_ me. We sang as we had never sung before, truly into character, the lyrics going deeper than a part played. Or so I had believed. Her eyes filled with emotion upon the balcony, as I sang to her the words that she believed I had not ever heard. I thought she knew, then. I thought I had really done it. I thought she understood me at last, as her Don Juan Triumphant. I did not recognize she was silently apologizing until she had torn the mask from my face.

For a moment, I was shocked beyond any feeling. I could not move, I could not speak, I could only stare at her, unable to believe what had just happened. I slowly became aware of people gasping, ladies shrieking and fainting, gentlemen yelling in horror and protest. Their terror hit me like a harsh, icy wave, washing over me with a sudden force. I may have staggered backwards in horror, I cannot remember. I had not heard such disgust and fear and hatred since I had been a child in the circus of the Gypsies. For a few helpless seconds, I was the small, scared boy in the cage again, groping for any filthy rag to cover my face and stop the noise.

And there she stood, holding my mask, my secret, my confidence in her hand. She was so beautiful, her perfect eyes shining with sorrow, her face a picture of regret, horror, and sympathy. But I only saw a demon, a cruel heartless demon, laughing as she cast me naked into the midst of the hungry crowd. She revealed my darkest secret, the thing that set me apart from the world, the curse that forced me into captivity, and into hiding. And I could not stand to be in the light any longer, so I took her away with me.

How could she have done it to me? The question raced through my head, over and over as I raced down the corridors with her. She knew, she _knew_ how terrible my face was. She knew the pain it caused me, the fear that any would look upon me and be afraid and hate me. She tore open my skin and threw my heart to those people, and they crushed it. Why? Why had she done this to me?

Why? The answer was made clear to me. For her stupid, spoilt fop. For his love, she betrayed me. I could not believe it. I thought she had loved me. I thought she knew I loved her. I was almost sure I had won her over. I did not know she would throw everything I had given her to the wayside so easily.

But she did. She chose him over me, she betrayed me for him, she ran away from me for him, and she loved me for him. In a madness I cannot begin to explain to you, I held her pretty lover captive. I had to know, would she save his life and put herself with me forever, or would she let him die to buy her own freedom? Would she sacrifice herself or him? And she chose herself, more than I expected, for she was so completely was she committed to her fate. I think perhaps she truly understood me, for a moment, no matter how brief it was. She looked at me, silent, as I goaded her, taunted her, pulled the noose a little tighter around her lover's neck. And she realized the truth:

The mask she'd removed was a mask to cover the real mask, the features I was born with. And she finally saw through that mask of horror, to see what no one ever saw. She saw I was no monster, I was human. Or I seemed to be. She saw I had a soul, at the very least, that I was just stuck within this guise, a Beauty's Beast. I could do nothing for what people saw, for they would never look deeper than my skin. But she did. Christine saw _me_.

And that was all I had ever asked. For someone to see past this cursed flesh, to see past the deformity. As she discovered my humanity, so did I. And I was hit with the impact of everything I had done. I had played with the lives of many, just for the love of one woman. I had betrayed her far more than she had betrayed me. I could not keep her, so pure and beautiful, to live forever with a monster like myself. So I let her go. I accepted my fate: to be alone, stumbling off into the depths of my sanctuary, trying to find a source of comfort with my beloved music box. She returned to me, and I could do nothing more than look at her. She came alone.

I remember so perfectly, and I shall never forget. She came over to me and looked at me, and I looked up at her. I whispered her name, then for the first time and the last, I told her I loved her. It was so good to tell her, finally. I had told her many things, wooed her in many ways, but I had never told her that I loved her before. I had been afraid to leave myself open to that kind of treatment. But she had returned to me! Returned of her own free will, and without the man she had sacrificed herself to rescue.

And then, one last time, she broke my heart. She place within my hand the ring I had stolen from her, and presented to her again as a token of my own love. She took my hand for a moment as she did this, and suddenly I saw it, in her eyes, she said goodbye to me. She never spoke a word, but I knew I'd never see her again. She left me, for the last time.

I should have known. No one could ever love me. No one could ever look at my ugly, horrible, imperfect features and see the real me. Or perhaps the real me was reflected by the horror on the outside. Perhaps I was such a horrible person, a dark and hateful soul, that they could not love me because of it. Can a hateful, ugly, horrible beast love? Maybe I am not such a beast, because I have loved. I loved Christine, even when she feared me, hated me, and betrayed me. I loved her all the more for it. Who was I to deserve her love? She was beautiful and talented and perfect. And I, I was nothing but a mistake. A monster, a deformity, a mar upon the world of art and beauty I had been surrounded with for so long. I did not deserve her.

But I had always, always loved her. From the moment I first found her in the small pretty room with the beautiful stained glass and the candles, I was entranced. She was so innocent and pure, singing a tearful prayer for her deceased father. I saw in her the pain that I had also lived. She was left with no one, alone and afraid, forced to sanctuary in the cold, dark opera house. I lent to her what comfort I could, playing the part of the Angel she sought. I guided her and protected her from those who would do her harm, though she never knew such. I cleared the path for her to take the spotlight. I gave her fame, let her bask in the applause of her adoring crowd, and I took pleasure in knowing that I was the one who brought her there.

She loved my voice, and my talents. When I would slip her a composition of my own, she would always love it. I had given her small parts of Don Juan, to see how she liked them, my greatest work. She loved them. She, in return, gave me trinkets, offerings to her Angel of Music. It often amused me. She would leave me the silliest girlish things, sweets and flowers and baubles, and I would make them disappear for her. I was touched by her thankfulness, and I kept them in my own bedroom, in a wooden box on the mantlepiece. She often told me she loved me, and at first I knew she didn't mean it. She loved the Angel of Music. She loved the voice, the talent. But slowly, slowly I began to forget that, as I myself fell in love with her. I regret it. But strangely, I do not regret Christine.

She had adored me in the beginning. Even when she had unmasked me for the first time, she adored me. I'd watched her return to her rooms, unseen, of course. Several times she stopped and turned back toward me with a longing glance, sighing "Poor Erik." Then she would continue on. Poor Erik indeed. She pitied me. Any man would be shamed to admit it, but then again, I am not any man. I was nothing but grateful for her sympathy. Few people I'd met had ever shown me sympathy.

And oh, how she had worshipped me. The other girls would whisper fearfully of the Opera Ghost-referring to myself, of course-and that fool Buquet often told frightful stories about me, but all the while my precious Christine would smile a little satisfied smile, knowing the secret of the Phantom of the Opera. I watched her often, watched her give her small head a shake with the absurdity of the superstitious performers' horror-filled descriptions of me, watched her tell her friends' to stop dwelling upon me. She told tales, too. All of them did, but I enjoyed Christine's tales, for she portrayed me as the "unseen genius" who guarded the opera house and its occupants. Or the Angel of Music, which she often told, how he -_I_- would visit artists and give them guidance and blessing. Her tales were always of the romantic sort. I was always flattered when she spoke of me.

How did I not see, I often wonder, that she did not see me as a man? She did not see me as a monster, like most did. But she did not see me as a man, either. I was her teacher, her mentor, her protector, her Angel. A holy being, unearthly. Not a man. And when she found that I was nothing but a man, it must have disappointed her. Perhaps that is why she unmasked me, wondering if I were an Angel, and my mask was to hide my holiness. I suppose that would be rather ironic. But it must have been true. As Pandora expected a great treasure when she opened the box and let out the horrors, Christine must have expected wonders beyond her imagination, instead of the horror she received.

And then there was the Vicomte. When I listened to him promising his love to her under Apollo's Lyre, I should have realized what he could give her that I never could. He promised her light and warmth and comfort. I could never give her any of that. I was doomed to cold darkness, hidden away from the world. All I could give her was my love and my music, and she needed more than that. I understood that now. Which was why I was leaving, for good.

The pretty little daughter of Simone Giry took my mask, which was quite unfortunate. But at the time I did not care. I broke the largest mirror and entered what I liked to call the Last Passage. I'd never been down it before. I'd saved it for this day, the day I had nowhere else to go, and no reason to stay. I was certain it led outside, but I did not know how it got there. To my great surprise, it led me to a secret door near the front doors. I broke into the night in time to catch a last glimpse of Christine. She was crying, looking back at the Opera Populaire, clutching the arm of the good Vicomte.

My Christine betrayed me, but I forgive her. I could never hate her for what she did to me. I deserved much worse, much worse. It was never meant to be, I should have known that from the beginning. I suspect that I will always love her. I have to. For she is the only one who has ever loved me. I believe she loved me. She just. . . did not love me enough.

_Finis_

Yes, it's sad, I know. But it's pretty. And it's what I've been thinking about it since I first saw it, since All I Ask Of You, really. So there you go. Took me FOREVER to get it up, but I love it.

How 'bout you? What'd you think? Let me know, 'kay?

AJ Wonkette


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